After 20 years in the spotlight, Eminem hasn’t left his dark comedy and battle rap roots by the wayside. And throughout those 20 years in the spotlight, the Hip Hop legend has made a career of calling out names.
However, the 45-year-old rap icon has been contrite about some of his past quarrels. Eminem heavily laments about the breakup of his former group D12, looking to dead any bad blood amongst them in the song “Stepping Stone” on his new Kamikaze album. He has done the same with several other notable artists and people that he’s waged wars against in the past.
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Here’s a list of five public beefs that Eminem has put to rest once and for all.
Everlast
The beef between Everlast and Eminem began in 2000 after the former MC claimed in an interview that he once briefly saw the (then) rising star in a hotel lobby. Eminem allegedly didn’t acknowledge his salutations and well wishes, which Everlast deemed as disrespect. Em explained that he was in a rush to perform at a concert and didn’t need to presumably bow to the former House of Pain frontman in the hotel. Everlast subsequently dissed Em and his daughter in his guest feature verse on Dilated Peoples’ “Ear Drums Pop (Remix).” Em also responded with the scathing diss track “I Remember” eulogizing Everlast’s career and life while mocking his Whitey Ford acoustic blues guitar style.
This sent a final exchange of diss records between them. This includes Everlast’s “Whitey’s Revenge,” Eminem’s “Quitter” and his remake of 2Pac’s “Hit Em Up” featuring D12. It took them 13 years for them to publicly squash their beef by appearing on the same track with Busta Rhymes “Calm Down.”
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Christina Aguilera
Long before he made pop radio-friendly hit singles such as “Not Afraid” and “Walk On Water,” Eminem was a curmudgeon who incessantly slammed pop princesses such as Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. In reaction to Aguilera who spoke on MTV about Em’s private relationship with his ex-wife Kim Scott, he ethered Aguilera on his song “The Real Slim Shady” by accusing her of sleeping with both MTV’s then TRL host Carson Daly and Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst (“Christina Aguilera better switch me chairs so I can sit next to Carson Daly and Fred Durst, and hear ’em argue over who she gave head to first,” he rapped).
Aguilera denied the Em’s allegation, then recorded her own response with the song “Will The Real Slim Shady Please Shut Up” and claimed Em is a “punk kid trying to be hardcore.” But Aguilera and Em publicly made amends backstage at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards. She also appeared at the premiere of his film 8 Mile that same year.
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Insane Clown Posse
The face-painted duo had a longstanding battle with Em dating back to their younger days in the 1990s Detroit underground rap scene. According to their autobiography ICP: Behind The Paint, the duo’s Violent J explains how Eminem tried to promote his Slim Shady EP in 1997 by claiming ICP would show up to his EP’s release party. When Violent J approached Em about the false advertisement that involved them, Em answered, “Maybe you will be there; I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you right now. You guys comin’ to my release party, or what?” That sparked a war on wax between the two parties that lasted for several years. Eminem dissed ICP on The Marshall Mathers LP with homophobic heat, “I was put here to put fear in faggots who spray Faygo Root Beer and call themselves ‘Clowns’ cause they look queer…” Then ICP followed up with their own shot at Em with the song “Nuttin’ But A Bitch Thang,” which portrays Eminem and Dre having sex with each other during its intro. Plus, ICP debuted their parody of Em’s single “My Name Is” titled “Slim Anus” during an interview on Howard Stern’s radio show in 1999.
But Em and ICP finally put their beef to rest earlier this decade. In the clip above, ICP made an appearance on Sway In The Morning, which airs on Eminem’s Sirius XM radio channel Shade 45, to discuss how D12’s late leader Proof went on behalf of Em to wave the white flag.
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“The best way to describe that is high school beef,” ICP’s Shaggy 2 Dope says. “We’re so old now that we don’t give a fuck about that.”
“Proof was on a mission, sort of, where he was squashing a lot of Em’s old beefs and things like that. When Em came out he was wild style, name-dropping everybody. He had a lot of beefs that were still existing or not closed down or whatever. When Proof came to us, we never really had so much respect.”
Apparently, both members D12 and ICP spent two days together and even went bowling as a unit. But Eminem wasn’t present during their verbal armistice. In reference to one of ICP’s lyrics from their viral hit “Miracles” in 2010, Eminem gave a tongue-in-cheek joke about ICP on his The Marshall Mathers LP 2 in 2013 on the song “Asshole” featuring Skylar Grey. He raps, “I’ll smack a girl off the mechanical bull at a tractor pull, thinkin’ we have some magnetic pull, then scream, ‘ICP in this bitch, how do fuckin’ magnets work?'”
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Royce Da 5’9
In the late 90s, Eminem and Royce Da 5’9 were inseparable as the duo Bad Meets Evil. The duo even recorded multiple singles as duo Bad Meets Evil on now-defunct indie label Game Recordings in 1998. Also, Royce was Eminem’s hypeman during the era when D12 hadn’t made it out of Detroit. But life began to change as Eminem got signed by Dr. Dre’s Aftermath label. When Eminem initially flew from Detroit to Los Angeles to record with Dre, Eminem planned to get Royce signed to Aftermath as well. He had even had Royce as a guest feature on the Slim Shady LP in 1999, and not Em’s group D12 who were all but broken up at the time. Plus, Royce was eventually offered a deal to ghostwrite a few songs for Dre, including “The Message” on Dre’s Chronic 2001 album released that same year. But the growth of their working relationship became stunted after the legendary producer read a quote from Royce’s manager Kino Childers in a Vibe magazine article.
“I’ve seen Eminem sit down Dr. Dre down in the studio and make Dre look like a pupil,” Kino said.
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Dre expressed his anger about the quote to Royce, but Royce remained loyal to his manager. Eminem didn’t have Royce appear on The Marshall Mathers LP as prescribed because Nickel sought a deal on his own from Tommy Boy Records and recorded his ill-fated Rock City which was shelved and later released with little promotion on Koch Records in 2002. When Eminem was on his Anger Management Tour in 2000, Royce chose not to remain his hypeman, leaving the honor for his D12 bandmate Proof as they prepped to release their debut album Devil’s Night in 2001 on Em’s Shady imprint.
As more division grew between Eminem and Royce, D12 backed their de facto leader against Royce, and a series of diss records between the two camps ensued, including a near-violent encounter between Proof and Royce in 2003. Em and Royce reconciled after Proof’s untimely death in 2006, which both rappers explain in the video above. Eminem and Royce have gone back to their original form as Bad Meets Evil and released their EP Hell: The Sequel in 2011. They have collaborated on several tracks for each other’s album since then, including “Not Alike” off Kamikaze.
Debbie Mathers
When Eminem dropped his debut single “My Name Is” from The Slim Shady LP, it was clear that he was not on good terms with his mother Debbie Mathers. He egregiously mocked her battle with Munchausen syndrome by rapping “Ninety-nine percent of my life I was lied to/I just found out my mom does more dope than I do/I told her I’d grow up to be a famous rapper/Make a record about doing drugs and name it after her.” He rapped about raping and killing her on The Marshall Mathers LP, and she sued her son for defamation of character in 2001. He even joked about the lawsuit in his opening lyrics to D12’s song “Purple Pills” in 2001 rapping “Cool, clam just like my mom with a couple of lawsuits inside her palm.”
Around the time Eminem “buried” his mother in the video of his 2002 hit single “Cleaning Out My Closet,” Debbie also revealed in a TV interview that their relationship was so strained that Eminem had banned her from seeing his daughter Hailie. However, years later, Slim doubled down on his regrets in 2014 for his harsh portrayals about his mother and video for “Headlights” featuring fun. frontman Nate Ruess.
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